


Bleeding Grey

by Shadow_Bringer



Series: MadaTobi Week Prompts [4]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, M/M, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-07
Updated: 2020-05-31
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:47:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24062338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shadow_Bringer/pseuds/Shadow_Bringer
Summary: He learns that soulmates are more than he had first taken them for and now he will do anything to secure peace, even if that means killing his own father.———2018, July 29th, 1st DaySoulmate/markOR Too Hot!
Relationships: Senju Tobirama/Uchiha Madara
Series: MadaTobi Week Prompts [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1721632
Comments: 47
Kudos: 634





	1. Chapter 1

Soulmates, he’s told, are your other half. Perfect for you and you alone. The one who will understand you better than anyone else. One particularly amused old woman had told him in whispers, like it was a secret, that the Kami had separated soulmates from each other because they were in fear of the power two souls, twisted together in all the perfect ways, could wield. She told him that soulmates are to be cherished above all else. After all, if they put something above their perfect other half, then they are clearly less then human. Monstrous in a way not even shinobi, for their bloody way of life, can match. What your soulmate touches looses all colour, a trail of grey and black and white to lead you to them. When they die, you are left in a colourless world. Many, she says, blind themselves to stop from being reminded eternally of all they lost. Others are killed by their sorrow.

”Promise me,” the old woman had said one day, solemn and serious. It was that that had caught his attention, rather than the words. He had paused, turning his full attention to her.

”Promise me,” she said again, “that if you find your soulmate, you’ll hold on to them. Don’t let them go. If you have your chance and you let it slip through your fingers, you’ll regret it, no matter your reasons and excuses.” It’s a promise he makes like lead in his stomach because he knows he won’t be able to honor it.

The old woman dies when he is just seven.

Now, he has no one to whisper him stories of soulmates and perfect other halves. His mother is long dead, his father uninclined. He is the one the tells the stories to his brothers because he is the one that knows the stories, that clings to them like a lifeline.

He protects his brothers, mostly. He’s their father’s soldier so they don’t have to be. He trains and fights and _kills_ so that they have the choice _not_ to. His brothers will always be more important than him. More important to him than _anything_ , even his soulmate. _Especially_ his missing soulmate.

He doesn’t begrudge his soulmate for not being around. He can’t, in good conscious, when he’s missed so much of the other’s life, as well. Sometimes, though, he thinks it would be easier without soulmates. He would never wish not to have his soulmate, regardless of his wandering thoughts. Soulmates are precious.

Just... perhaps not as precious as his living, breathing family. A family he knows and is oh so lucky to have.

It’s just his luck, then, to find his soulmate on the battlefield. It’s just his luck that his soulmate is the brother of his rival (almost friend, he can see the fondness hovering just out of reach, ready to crash in when this meaningless war is finally, _finally_ over). He knows, then and there, his soulmate can’t know.

Not until Butsuma and Tajima are killed and fed to the worms. Killed, because he is not so lucky to think that either of them would die another way. He realizes that he doesn’t mind if he is the one to put the pair out of commission.

Perhaps that makes him the monster, the demon, that others always call him.

Perhaps he knows, now, why the old woman had told him to cling to his soulmate once he found them.

Perhaps she, too, had had a soulmate on the other side of the battlefield.

Perhaps she had seen them cut down before her, by her own family.

He won’t allow the same to happen to his own soulmate. They will have their peace, even if he must give his life to get it. Anything to keep his family and his soulmate’s family from killing each other.


	2. Chapter 2

Madara’s soulmate is a Senju. He doesn’t know which one, since so many of them are painted in shades of grey. Hashirama has no colour whatsoever, anymore, but the man isn’t his soulmate. They’ve spent far too long together, both at the river and on opposite sides of the battlefield. Butsuma is also grey but everyone knows his soulmate was killed after the birth of Itama. Tobirama, Kawarama, Itama, Touka, several Senju he doesn’t know the names of, the youngest of the enemy, all are monochrome. The weapons are hard, since he doesn’t know which ones are actually grey and which ones have had their colour leached.

Several Uchiha, including Madara’s own brothers, have splashes of grey across hands, arms, faces. Whoever his soulmate is, they’re skilled. Many Senju have grey patterning their faces in the way Madara has seen older, blind Uchiha use to ‘see’ their friends and family. But then the trees are grey, not near the ground but high in the branches, and a patch of _grey river_ passed him once (he wasn’t even aware that that was possible), and members of many different clans have splotches of grey, civilians, leaves, paths through forests and plains, rocks, even the odd wild animal. It’s like his soulmate has been _everywhere_ but if they really are blind, then none of that makes sense. And if they aren’t, then why the face touching? Unless they picked it up from someone else when they were young which would make a small amount of sense, he supposes.

His father tells him, in no uncertain terms, that it’ll be impossible for him to ever meet his soulmate on peaceable terms. Butsuma is a cruel man and it’s unlikely his sons are any less manipulative and bloodthirsty. Madara bites his tongue to keep him from telling Tajima that no, Hashirama is _not_ like his father. That would be stupid and dangerous for both Hashirama and himself. Besides, everyone know Tobirama would never support peace, never allow his Anija to make peace. Not without sabotaging the Uchiha at every turn. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It’s very short, but it’s something, right? I’ll probably put out some more editions to this, at some point.


	3. Chapter 3

To those ignorant, Butsuma died surrounded and outnumbered by a group of shinobi from the Hagoromo Clan. Those that know better, however, would be able to pick out the small inconsistencies. Too bad none of these people where ever allowed to see Butsuma before the man had already been prepared for burial.

Butsuma had, in actuality, drowned. A strange thing, considering he was so far from any water source.

The Senju heirs were less than heartbroken. Tobirama hardly reacted to the news, beyond a slight tightening of his lips, while Kawarama had merely snorted in disgust, holing himself up in the house of the clan head. A title which, at that point, fell to the young Hashirama.

Tobirama took over much of the clan’s operations, dealing with the Elders and the machinations that keep the clan running. Too many adults slink away when he comes near, too many suspect him of foul play. Not that they can act on their suspicions, when the clan begins to do so much better under the leadership of the two eldest brothers.

Itama knows. Tobirama does nothing to dissuade his youngest brother from the truth, though he never says an incriminating word.

Butsuma died to the Hagoromo, after all, and what could Tobirama possibly know about that?

An offer of peace is drafted. Tobirama’s words with Kawarama’s writing, Itama’s suggestions and additions, and Hashirama’s signature. Simple and unassuming, just a few hopeful overtures of peace from a clan head too young to lead. It’s delivered by summons; Tobirama’s to be exact. None of the brothers trust their Elders enough to deliver it in any other manner.

It’s a treaty declined, Tajima too untrusting to ever believe the words of a Senju, no matter the age or personality. Tobirama runs his fingers through his summon’s fur as Kawarama reads the rejection. He pretends not to notice Itama’s sharp worry, focusing solely on his Anija’s crushing disappointment. In the distance, fiery chakra flickers at the edge of his senses, enticing him to follow.

Tobirama changes strategies.

The Elders watch considerately as their ghost of an heir starts to _push_. They had thought that, with the death of Butsuma, their clan would weaken, would stop growing and taking. They think now that perhaps they were wrong. Itama watches, biting his tongue as his brother works towards a goal he doesn’t understand. Kawarama and Hashirama continue on in blissful ignorance.

Uchiha and Senju child killers alike begin to die horrid, bloody deaths, their bodies left only as warnings (Madara doesn’t mention the unnatural grey on them).

Uchiha child-soldiers return home with whispers of angels and avenging spirits, like whirlwinds in the trees (again, Madara leaves out his soulmate’s touch).

Togakushi, second youngest of the Uchiha heirs, is saved from death and returned to them with a message of peace (Madara wonders at his soulmate’s actions and motives and says nothing, his silence weighing heavily on him).

Tajima grows only more paranoid and pushes more violently at the Senju border.

As such, it is no surprise that the clans are pulled into a full battle once more. Tajima stands at one side of the field, the Uchiha at his back and Madara a step behind him. Hashirama and Tobirama stand side-by-side on the other, Touka behind them like a wraith and the Senju looming like a forest.

The battle starts in a rush of noise. No one ever mentions the sheer deafening noise of battle when telling tales of their conquests. Hashirama clashes with Tajima, Touka with Madara. Tobirama disappears in the chaos. The fight seems almost... halfhearted.

The battle ends with grey blood and grey water and Tajima on his knees, a sword through his chest. Tobirama stands above him like a colourless demon. A dragon of water curls around him and Tajima allowing no one, not even Hashirama, to come near.

”Peace was never an option,” the boy had murmured and his voice had carried to every shinobi with the same clarity as if he had been shouting. “It was a demand.”


	4. Chapter 4

Learning that his soulmate was a Senju had been difficult but it had been nothing Madara couldn’t deal with. It could help him with peace, he had rationalized, help him save his three younger brothers, even if his elder brother had been taken from him. Tajima might have denied him his ceasefire, but Madara would be clan head after and it’s not like he’s ever given up on his dream. A dream borne between two children forced to grow up too fast in a bloody war they had no hand in.

Learning that his soulmate, the one to match him more fully and perfectly than any other, was Senju Tobirama, a demon for all he was only Izuna’s age? Learning this while on the battlefield? While his father, while not the best but still his _family_ , was cut down in front of him? It soured those ideas.

When Hashirama’s letter arrived, the words speaking of peace and, more immediately, a ceasefire... Madara almost turned it down. Almost rejected it in the manner his father had. But something in him longs for Tobirama. Longs to know Tobirama beyond the cold mask displayed on the battlefield. Tobirama, after all, had done for the peace what Madara and Hashirama could not bring themselves to do. Tobirama bought the lives of the Senju and Uchiha shinobi and civilians with the blood of Madara’s father and who is he to let that go to waste? To allow his beloved father to die in vain like so many before?

The Elders are difficult to deal with and convince. Togakushi stands with him, though, as does Hikaku. Kuro and Izuna are far more wary but, to Madara’s relief, they don’t undermine his authority (so new, so fresh and weak in the wake of Tajima’s death), content to trust him.

The majority of the clan accepts the peace, accepts Madara’s decision, but the hesitance to put any trust in Tobirama is expected.

The Uchiha Elders and Heirs end up on the opposite side of the Naka as a matching contingency from the Senju. Madara leading his clan, Hashirama and Tobirama leading theirs. Kuro stands beside him on his left, Togakushi and Izuna a solid presence at his right.

Kawarama and Itama are on either sides of the Elders, looking more like guards (prison guards, he thinks, and he asks himself just what his soulmate has been prepared to do) than the heirs they are.

When Madara shakes Hashirama’s hand, he can see the relief, excitement, and happiness warring in his eyes. When he takes Tobirama, he feels like the world has been torn out from under him. Tobirama’s hand tightens almost imperceptibly around his, grounding him at their soul bond settles. The colour that floods back into the Senju is almost overwhelming but Tobirama hardly changes, beyond the vibrant, soulful red that bleeds into his eyes.

The albino, so out of place amongst his clan (and suddenly the nickname White Demon makes so much more sense to him, with his white hair and pale skin), offers a small, sharp smile that holds promises and an edge of vicious, smug victory.

Madara drops his soulmate’s hand, stepping back as he ignores the silence that came over the muttering, unhappy Elders. This peace Madara has believed was his and Hashirama’s, something they had worked for and fought for and bled for, but it’s not. It is, as he’s come to realize, Tobirama’s.

And Tobirama alone deserves to lead them into it.


	5. Chapter 5

The finalizing of the peace doesn’t take that long. For the most part, the Uchiha hold soul bonds in high esteem, unlike the majority of the Senju. It’s odd, how the Uchiha seem to expect Tobirama and Madara to just fall perfectly into each other’s lives with little effort. What’s stranger is how correct they seem to be. Tobirama ends up at the Uchiha Compound almost as much as he’s in his own compound.

He learns his soulmate’s habits and likes, dislikes and little oddities. He learns about Madara, not just the Uchiha clan head. He learns about Izuna and Togakushi and Kuro, about Hikaku and Kagami.

Admittedly, he may get a little... obsessed.

But he had waited far too long to care. He loves the feel of Madara’s hair under his fingers, the friendly arguments he can tease from the man. Loving Madara and being _in love_ with Madara are two very different things, however, and he keeps himself distant for all that he pulls secrets and hopes and dreams so gently from his soulmate. He refuses to allow the man any closer to him until their peace has been solidified, until a village stands between the Uchiha and Senju.

The Senju, he knows, have made the connection. There is no way for him to have found the way to his soulmate the conventional way but that in no way has tamed the whispers. Itama, at least, is sensible in his suspicions, for all that he will never know the exact truth.

They find themselves with an issue concerning the peace and the village.

The clan leadership on both sides are too young to partake in arranged marriages, even by shinobi standards. There is no one in high enough standing in either clan to be married off that will leave the Elder’s content. Hashirama and Madara are only eighteen. Kuro and Togakushi are seventeen. Izuna is sixteen, Tobirama at fifteen himself. Kawarama is two years younger at thirteen. Itama, for all his intelligence and skill and burgeoning mokuton, is by far the youngest at ten years of age. Hikaku and Touka are similarly too young, though Touka is on the fence at twenty.

Tobirama puts an end to the considering looks the Elders give Touka with a few words, spoken airily for all that his chakra had been focused into a needle’s point. Or, more accurately, a senbon’s point.

Tobirama keeps the Senju Elders on a short leash as the village begins to take shape on the very Naka river where all this started so long ago between two optimistic eight year olds. Izuna, to his amusement, has taken to him like a fish to water although the boy, older by a year, is clearly more focused on Touka than on Tobirama himself.

Touka’s increasingly exasperated and annoyed (and, through cause and effect, increasingly _violent_ ) rejections are endlessly amusing to watch.

He finds himself dreading the day Touka deems them both old enough, regardless of any humor he finds in the situation now.

More so, he finds Kuro’s fascination with _Hashirama_ , of all people, disconcerting.

He had told Mito of this development during her short visit and she had turned to him, chakra deadly serious for all that it was muffling her true amusement, and she had told him, in no uncertain terms, that she didn’t mind it. Welcomed it, even.

The more the merrier, had been her words, and he had been reminded all at once of the Uzumaki’s easy acceptance (and in some cases, encouragement) of polygamy. For all that he acknowledges and accepts relationships of that nature, his natural possessiveness made it impossible for him to understand them.

He had avoided Mito, Hashirama, and Kuro for the remainder of the princess’ stay, unwilling to end up accidentally coming upon something that really shouldn’t be come upon (not that he could cut his sensing off from them completely, as much as he had desperately wanted to).

Togakushi, thankfully, seems to be one of the few sane Uchiha. Madara is not included in that number precisely because he’s Tobirama’s soulmate. No one made perfectly for Tobirama, or for whom Tobirama is made perfectly for, could be completely stable, for a lack of a better descriptor. It’d simply be too boring.

And oh is Madara _fun_.


	6. Chapter 6

Madara hears the whispers. They still when Madara passes, Tobirama by his side, but they start up soon after. They get quiet, at times, but they never stop. They revolve around Tobirama, Madara’s name thrown around only a few times. He had approached a group about it, at one point. A trio of Uchiha women talking peacefully with a Senju couple, and Uzumaki, and a younger Shimura who, like Madara, seems to be there only to sate his curiosity. The Uzumaki had leveled him an amused look, which he ignored in favor of focusing on what the woman’s companions were talking about.

”Tobirama killed Tajima,” One Uchiha woman, Suzuki, says with a firm nod. “ _That’s_ common knowledge _but..._ ”

”Tajima wasn’t the only clan head to die by his hands,” the Senju woman finishes with a twist of her lips. Not in disgust or anger or fear like one might think but rather a wry sort of amusement.

”Really?” Madara pushes, inquisitive. Besides him, the Shimura leans forward eagerly, eyes just about as wide at the boy could make them.

”Oh honey,” the Uzumaki purrs, “ _Everyone_ knows Tobi killed Butsuma. He might think he’s being sneaky about it but he’s not _that_ good at faking the effects of poison.” Madara is... suitably stunned. At the same time, though, he can see where they’re coming from, even if he can’t agree.

”Tobirama wouldn’t kill his father,” Madara has to insist. The Senju man levels him a severely unimpressed look.

“Madara-sama, that man was as much those kids’ father as a stranger on the street was. Probably less so, even.” He sighs, shrugging. “Butsuma was a great leader and warrior but he wasn’t a good man and he was a worse father.”

The next time Madara visits Tobirama, those words stick in his mind. Would Tobirama have really killed his father? Is it really so surprising he’d go so far from for his peace? The albino watches him for only a few seconds before says, deceptively light, “afraid I’ll drown you and blame it on the Kaguya?” Madara pales when he registers the words, blinking wide-eyed at his soulmate.

”You _know_?” Tobirama gives him the especially infuriating look that says his soulmate is calling him an idiot internally.

”Of course I know. I have ears and exceptional hearing on top of that,” he says, dryer that Suna’s desert.

“Stupid Senju,” he grumbles, crossing his arms petulantly.

”I love you,” Tobirama says, once more lightly than he should. As if it doesn’t matter that this is the first time the albino has even vaguely implied he returns Madara’s (rather obvious) feelings. In response, Madara chokes. And splutters and flails and turns redder than the sharingan. It’s a very eloquent reply.

”I love you too, bastard,” he manages, several hours later, when he’s calm enough that he doesn’t turn red every time he so much as looks at his soulmate.

”I know,” Tobirama, the smug asshole, says.

(It’s a full day later when Madara realized that nobody ever mentions drowning when they talk about Butsuma’s death.)


End file.
